Bertrand Russell Quotes

Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.

What Galileo and Newton were to the seventeenth century, Darwin was to the nineteenth.

To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.

Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?

Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue. A man who has learned not to feel fear will find the fatigue of daily life enormously diminished.

That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a way out.

Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the government.

Who ever heard a theologian preface his creed, or a politician conclude his speech with an estimate of the probable error of his opinion?

War can only be abolished by the establishment of a world government.

To a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-footed animal is an animal.

Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

This illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.

Christ . . . said that a man who had looked after a woman lustfully had sinned as much as the man who had seduced her. How absurd!

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

The commonest objection to birth control is that it is against nature.

You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.

The secrets to happiness include enterprise, exploration of one's interests and the overcoming of obstacles.

The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience on present reactions.

It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.

Change is one thing, progress is another.

Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love.

John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since!

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.

Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.

The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right

Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.

The whiter my hair becomes, the more ready people are to believe what I say.

I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormons tried to convert me, but when I found they forbade tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.

Cruelty is, in theory, a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd.

Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat.

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them and feel justified in lying to them.

I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.

I have come to realize that an early symptom of approaching mental illness is the belief that one's work is terribly important. If you consider your work very important you should take a day off.

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.

In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.

America remained a land of promise for lovers of freedom. Even Byron, at a moment when he was disgusted with Napoleon for not committing suicide, wrote an eloquent stanza in praise of Washington.

My doctor said to me afterwards, 'When you were ill you behaved like a true philosopher. Every time you came to yourself you made a joke.' I never had a compliment that pleased me more.

Escape from boredom is one of the really powerful desires of almost all human beings.

European travellers find the Japanese a smiling race.

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

I can't tell whether I am living in a dream or a nightmare.

Every sane and sensible and quiet thing we do is absolutely ignored by the press.

In any closet, you can find it, if it is too small, or out of style, or there is just one of it where there should be two

Among the Tibetans, one wife has many husbands, because men are too poor to support a whole wife.

War grows out of ordinary human nature.

Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.

The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.